Karachi: Misconceived notions of honour claimed yet another life in the city on Saturday as a teenage girl was reportedly shot dead by her father at their residence located within the Zaman Town police limits.
As per police reports, 17-year-old Khadija had returned to her parents’ house in Christian Colony, Korangi yesterday four years after eloping with a man of her choice. Her father, Ajab Khan, however, proved to be as unforgiving as ever and after a heated argument, shot her multiple times at close range.
The killer managed to flee after the shooting and was yet to be arrested.
Khadija’s injuries proved too severe for her to even make it to the hospital and a post-mortem was conducted at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.
Abdul Rehman, head mohrrar at the Zaman Town police station, told The News that Khadija had eloped with a man named Babar in 2011 after her parents refused to bless their union. “The couple had recently split up and Khadija had come back to her parents’ house yesterday for the first time since she left,” he narrated.
On November 20, two innocent lives were lost to ‘honour’ as the bullet-riddled bodies of a young man and woman were found in Khuda Ki Basti, Surjani Town.
The bodies of the victims – identified as 22-year-old Shahidullah and 18-year-old Asma – were found dumped near a warehouse in Gulshan-e-Behram, acccording to police.
Officials had said that the duo, both from families hailing from Waziristan, were neighbours living in the area. They said the couple was found together in the girl’s house and that Asma’s family members shot them both – Shahid six times and Asma thrice – and dumped the bodies.
Unfortunately, honour killings remain rampant in Pakistan as, according to a report by the federal law ministry released in February this year, a total of 933 people have been killed in the country during the past two years, including 83 non-Muslims, of which most murders for honour took place in Sindh.
The report stated that 456 cases of honour killing were reported in 2013, while 477 were reported in 2014. During both years, the greatest number of cases, 602, surfaced in Sindh.
In 2013, 66 cases of honour killings were reported in Punjab, 315 in Sindh, 47 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 28 in Balochistan.
In 2014, 80 cases emerged in Punjab, 287 in Sindh, 78 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 32 in Balochistan.
Similarly, according to independently compiled figures by the Aurat Foundation, 432 women were killed for honour in 2012, 705 in 2011, 557 in 2010, 604 in 2009 and 475 women were killed in the year 2008.
Last year in May, a 25-year-old girl, Farzana Iqbal, had been stoned to death by her family right outside in the Lahore High Court for marrying the man of her choice.
The attackers included the girl’s two brothers, father and also her former fiance. She had been waiting for the high court to open when a group of dozen men had begun hitting her with bricks owing to which she had suffered grave head injuries and had later passed away in a hospital. All the suspects, except her father, had escaped. The family of the deceased had filed a case of abduction against her husband and she was attacked when she had gone to court to record a statement in favour of her husband.
The incident had sparked an outcry from the public, civil society and the media, prompting the chief justice and prime minister to take notice of the incident and order inquiries. However, in November last year, an anti-terrorism court of Lahore sentenced four men to death in the Farzana killing case.
The convicts included her father, brother, cousin and her former fiance. This was followed by another much-awaited move by the Senate which in March 2015 passed four anti-honour killing and anti-rape laws.
The News
